


Adrenaline and Black Out Rage

by yourrhinestoneeyes



Category: Metalocalypse
Genre: M/M, making out in jail cells, mentions of Toki's mental state and childhood, nobody knowing how to handle their rhythm guitarist's issues, season two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-17
Updated: 2014-09-23
Packaged: 2018-02-17 18:54:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2319869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourrhinestoneeyes/pseuds/yourrhinestoneeyes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pickles got arrested after the fight with Rikki, he didn't know until he got to the police station that he wasn't the only member of his band that was arrested that night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Pickles had managed to break the guy's nose and knock two teeth down his throat before cops pulled him off. After that he was dragged kicking and thrashing around like a drunken punk at a Circle Jerks show and shoved into the back of a squad car, possibly more man handling than was really necessary. Though he hadn't made the lives of the cops in the front of the cruiser's any easier on the way to the police station when he he had begun kicking the barrier separating them from him and his drunken temper tantrum. 

“I'm famous you stupid fucking assholes!” 

They continued to ignore him, the pudgy middle aged cop in the passenger seat was becoming irritated with the yelling thirty something year old red head in the back of the car. If he hadn't already been reprimanded not too long ago for getting a bit too rough with a drunk he had arrested then he would have his partner pull over and let him teach the man in back a lesson or two.

“Hey fat fucks, I'm in Dethklok. I fucking play drums, I'm worth more than both of you. Fuck come on, I didn't even do anything wrong.”

He was too stoned for this. Pickles slumped down in the seat, he adjusted so the cuffs on his wrists stopped digging into his skin so badly. He resorted to just glaring at them through the barrier, surprisingly enough being glared at by a guy who wreaked of weed and beer did nothing to upset them. 

When they arrived they pulled him out, again harder than necessary to the point he thought they would dislocate something. They dragged him into the building, this time with less kicking and elbowing, but still with the yelling.

“Do you have anybody you want to call?”

“Yeah my fucking lawyer, my band's lawyer.”

“Sure whatever you say. You get one call, make it quick.”

He muttered something under his breath as they removed the cuffs and left him to make one out call before they would be shoving him into a holding cell. It's not like this was really the first time he had been arrested, but it was the first time he had been arrested alone for years; when he'd started joining bands he had other people to get arrested with. As a teenager, well people ran like mother fuckers when they heard sirens even if they were coming nowhere near them, and of course Pickles was the one they left to get picked up by the cops.

“Hello, Charles Ofdensen speaking.”

“Heh hey Charlie, um I might have gotten arrested.”

He heard a heavy sigh on the other end of the line. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and for a moment considered running his fingers back through his hair until he realized that hadn't been possible for years now. He did not need the band lawyer acting like his disappointed father right now, he could call home if he wanted that.

“Of course, I will ah get this sorted out immediately. Goodbye.”

With that the line went dead.

At least he had the comfort of knowing that Ofdensen was efficient; he would have him out of jail within the hour if he were lucky. He wondered if his friends even knew he was gone or if they just bailed out and in two or three hours would realize their drummer wasn't with them. They all had this terrible habit of not noticing things or remembering things for that matter. Not like he held it against them, because his attention span and his over all mind was as fucked up as theirs. 

The pudgy middle aged cop came in to get him, he grabbed his arm tightly enough to probably leave bruises. Pickles wanted to make comments or continue to complain, but he knew the guy was probably about twelve seconds away from punching him in the face, so he was going to keep to himself on that front. He had hoped the cell would be empty, but it wasn't. There was one other guy in there sitting on the floor in the corner with his legs drawn up against himself. Great a psychopath or a junkie, if it was a junkie he could handle that. He could possibly even buy something off of them if they got let out around the same time. The older officer shoved him into the cell, he nearly fell on his face, but caught his balance. 

Pickles sat down on one of the two benches in the cell and looked at literally anything other than the figure in the corner. He read the graffiti on the ceiling and the walls, looking at the names and numbers of hookers and drug dealers, even a few hit men. Literally anything except for the guy in the corner of the room who made him feel uncomfortable as hell. The blood staining the guy's arms, hands, and clothes didn't really help that feeling of discomfort. Shit the dude was really covered in it, like something out of a horror film. Great he was going to be brutally murdered in a crap holding cell in California. That was not how he planned on going out. Pickles always pictured being older, not too old, stoned beyond belief, and surrounded by really gorgeous super models. Too bad there weren't any women, just some weird guy in dark brown jeans with long brown hair...

“Fucking no way.”

Pickles got up and cautiously moved over to the figure in the corner of the room. If he was right then he wasn't sure he wanted to know. If he was wrong then there was a chance some crazed murderer was about to rip him wide open while cops stood by and laughed, because they didn't care if some loud mouthed red head got his ass handed to him.

“Toki?”

The dark haired man curled his fingers against his arm a couple of times, but didn't move or respond.

“Dude, please tell me that's you.”

He had hoped for a response, no response was just weird. The kid had always been kind of weird though; not in the psycho way, he never seemed like somebody who could do that. He also didn't seem like he would be in a holding cell, coated with blood, and sitting on the floor in the fetal position like something out of a Tobe Hooper film.

“Toki, what the fuck happened to you?”

This time Pickles managed to get himself to reach out and touch what he hoped was his friend. He placed a hand on the other man's shoulder, when he touched him he didn't lash out he just tried to pull away despite the fact he had himself cornered. He kept his hand on the other man's shoulder, he wanted some sort of a response; he really just wanted to know for sure he had the right person.

“Come on, it's okay; can ya look at me dude?”

He hadn't smoked enough weed to deal with this, this was usually the sort of thing that Nathan or Skwisgaar dealt with. This was their territory, they had always looked after and taken care of the youngest member of their group and also the newest. 

“Hey it's Pickles, come on...What are you even doing in here?”

He moved his hand from his shoulder to his hair, it was from what he could see at the moment the least blood stained part of his person. Toki flinched when Pickles stroked his fingers through his hair, could have been because that was a weird thing for him to do, or because he was in some sort of messed up state. He had been odd ever since his father died, even before that he would go off; different things triggered him into panic attacks, anger to the point of violence, or into severe fits of depression where he wouldn't talk for weeks. He had been that way since he was sixteen and in the past couple of years it seemed to be getting worse. Pickles wasn't sure what was going on with him right now, what the hell had triggered him, or why he was covered with so much blood.

“It's okay, you know I won't hurt you. Toki come on, I wanna make sure you're okay. Pigs didn't hurt ya did they?”

He kept combing his fingers through his hair, he wasn't in the mood to question how weird that could be. Besides his hair was really soft, this was going to a weird place. He just wanted to make sure he was okay though, this was really freaking him out; he didn't know what they were supposed to do when he got like this. He doubted the others even knew that he was here and if they did they obviously had just bailed out on him instead of bailing him out. Again, not something really surprising.

Surprising was when Toki finally did lift his head up, he didn't exactly look at Pickles. He kept his eyes downcast, but he had a perfect view of his face. 

Pickles was unsettled to say the least when he saw how much blood was splattered on his face. It was odd looking at somebody so young with such a youthful face and wide eyes like that and they were coated in somebody's blood. He couldn't even get a read on his emotional state, his eyes were glassy and he just continued to look down. 

“Fuck, what did you do?” He whispered, not like he expected an answer to that.

Toki didn't look at him once, just continued staring at nothing. Pickles wanted to touch his face, he knew touching him got responses even if they were just little ones. He was mentally gone, but not too far; he wondered how long it would be until he would get back. The drummer risked it and touched his fingers to his cheek, his skin felt cool and as expected he flinched away when he felt contact. 

“Hey, hey it's okay....Come on say something to me, look at me maybe?”

The guitarist's therapist usually knew how to handle this, but Pickles had no clue what they did. Probably pills or shots; the kid was loaded up on that sort of stuff, not for the recreational reasons the rest of the band did them. Skwisgaar had done a great job of taking in a teenager from the streets and putting him in their band. Not like Pickles resented the idea or had anything against the kid, he liked him a lot. He was one of the nicer members of their group even if that put him at a horrid disadvantage in this life. Though from the looks of things it looked like he had the ability to be an asshole like the rest of them.

Pickles kept his hand against his cheek, he did his best to not think about the blood.

“Toki” He repeated his name again, more sternly this time.

The younger man parted his lips then closed them again, his eyes darted nervously. Pickles moved his hand from his face to his hair, Toki's body relaxed the slightest bit as he started to come to from the place in his mind he'd been hiding away in. 

“Good boy” Pickles whispered, he smiled relieved that his friend was starting to come to.

The distant look left his eyes replaced by a look of fear and confusion, his hand shot up to Pickles taking hold of it. The drummer allowed him to hold onto his hand, his eyes met the older man's like he wanted answers to what was going on. He was used to this; Toki usually wounded up doing things like this from time to time. By the time he'd come back to the present he wouldn't remember anything that happened or where he was, it scared the hell out of him. Normally Skwisgaar was the one there to look after him and console him when this happened.

“Pickle?”

“Hey welcome back dude.”

“Where are we?”

“Jail”

The younger musician's eyes widened slightly.

“Shit....Shit, no this can't be happening. No this wasn't supposed to happen anymore.” 

He looked scared and frantic as he started looking over himself; at the blood covering his body. His hands shook as he pulled at his shirt, a look of fear and disgust on his face. He knotted his fingers in his hair and tried hiding away from the red haired man again.

“No this isn't good. I'm not....I thought I had it under control. Oh god, God....This can't be happening, please. I didn't mean to!” He rocked himself gently back and forth, soft cries and muttering in a language the drummer didn't understand any part of came from his frightened friend.

Pickles grabbed his wrists trying to pry his arms away so that he could look him in the eye again. Toki lowered his arms, but couldn't bring himself to meet the drummer's eyes. 

“Hey, calm down; what are you rambling about?” He asked calmly.

He placed his hand on his cheek again, he wiped away drops of blood and tears with the pad of his thumb. This time when he touched Toki the younger man didn't flinch away, he sat still and for a second was able to bring himself to meet the older man's eyes. Fear and bad memories from his long ago past made him look away though.

“I did something bad, really bad.”

“What did you do?”

Toki shook his head, “I don't know what I did, but...Look at me, it was something really bad.”

There was definitely something he was keeping to himself. How scared he was though, Pickles didn't really want to push and berate him for answers he wasn't in a state to give. Instead the drummer allowed himself to relax, things were better than they had been just a minute ago. 

“It's okay, we'll figure it out. It'll be okay.” He assured

“Why are you here?” Toki asked desperate to change to something away from himself.

Pickles shrugged and smirked, “I kind of beat the shit out of that Rikki guy, Ofdensen should be getting us outta here soon.”

The guitarist seemed to relax himself upon finding out why his friend had been arrested. Pickles didn't think about the fact he still had his hand on his cheek until Toki placed his own hand over his. 

“Are you okay now?”

“I'm scared” He answered honestly.

“You don't remember anything at all?”

“No, just being really angry. Really angry.”

“Maybe you got in a fight too?”

“That's what I'm scared of.”

Pickles was about to ask what he meant by that, but the look in his eyes was practically begging him to just let it go. He could do that. He'd had a long night, day, week, and life; life was stressful. He felt pretty calm right now though, he didn't even mind their generally efficient lawyer was going to lecture them once he got them out of jail. 

“You don't know what happened, you blacked out, and shit was really crazy back there. Alright? You might have done nothing all that bad.”

“You think so?” Toki asked hopefully, God he really wanted to find out he didn't do anything bad.

“Sure, stop worrying so much about it.”

The drummer pressed his lips against his forehead, when he pulled back the younger musician was staring up at him with wide light blue eyes. It wasn't like Pickles hadn't crossed the line over into the territory of bisexuality before and he knew both guitarists were bisexual. Not like they ever bothered to tell Nathan or Murderface that; Nathan didn't want to know and the bassist was weird as hell when it came to sexual orientation. The thought had crossed Pickles mind a time or two about the younger guitarist, but he normally shrugged it off. Right now he felt more so confronted with it.

They stared at each other in this game of just waiting, Toki still looked lost and confused. Pickles wasn't sure if kissing him would be a good idea, but he still had the slightest bit of a buzz going, and fuck his friend was attractive in that pretty boy way. He knew that anymore that look didn't mean too much, but he knew a few years back somebody like him could have had literally anything they wanted. 

Pickles pressed his lips to his kissing him gently, he hesitated almost reconsidering until Toki kissed him back. The brunette placed a hand on the back of his neck pulling him in closer, sharp teeth bit into his lower lip teasingly and a tongue swiped over the area that had just been bitten. Pickles parted his lips moaning softly when the younger man's tongue ran over his own. The tip of Toki's tongue pushed over and against the ball of Pickles' tongue piercing. The drummer moved onto Toki's lap, he held his face in his hands as the kiss went from gentle and wondering what the hell they were doing into something passionate and craving. 

He didn't care about the blood, he didn't care his own knuckles hurt like hell right now, or that his shoulder hurt from where the cops had handled him roughly. He didn't care they were on the floor of a holding cell in jail and that literally any asshole walking by could see this weird hard to explain display. They broke apart to catch their breath, they locked eyes again this time fear, loss, and hesitation were replaced by lust and need. Pickles kissed him again catching his friend by surprise, he moved to his jawline, he kissed up to his earlobe. The younger man moaned when the drummer took his earlobe in his mouth nipping, the ball of his tongue piercing going over the skin. Toki grabbed him by his shoulders pulling him back, the older man smirked at him. The younger man smiled shyly at him, Pickles was going to kiss him again, but that was the moment their lawyer accompanied by two cops decided to enter. 

The two of them broke apart as quickly as they could. Ofdensen at this point in his career working with the band decided the best policy was to never question what they did with one another. So long as they didn't hurt themselves, kill themselves, or kill each other then he didn't care. He didn't want to know; Toki and Pickles were very fine with that policy. They were beyond grateful to get out of jail even if by the time all the paper work was through and they went outside they weren't sure what to do with themselves or each other. Pickles liked to consider it was just left over adrenaline, maybe Toki was thinking the same thing. He was used to this sort of thing, it had happened too much when he'd been in Snakes n' Barrels. You fooled around with a guy or a girl and they told you to never tell anybody about it, because it either made them feel dirty or ashamed. He could handle that, he wasn't even sure why the Hell that had happened in the first place. Even after one and a half cigarettes he could still taste the metallic tang of blood on his tongue, he didn't mind it.


	2. Chapter 2

Pickles woke up with a terrible hang over and sore muscles. Fuck what happened last night?

...Oh right he got into a fight, got arrested, and then ended up making out with Toki until they got bailed out of jail. Right that was what had happened. Up until the part about making out with his band's rhythm guitarist, it all sounded like a pretty regular night for him. Everything tended to end up with fights, arrest, or sex; though if they had been alone in that cell for a few more minutes it could have ended with sex. He wasn't entirely sure that he would have minded or regretted that leading to sex, it would have been a really good stress release. 

He pushed himself up into a sitting position with the intention of getting up, but his head was throbbing and the movement caused him to lean over the side of the bed and puke. Fuck it. No he wasn't getting up, not right now. It sounded like way too much work. Pickles flopped back down onto the bed groaning and shivering from the pain in his head and his sore arms. Stupid fucking cops, did they really have to handle him like that?

God he needed to get up, but it was only three in the afternoon so he could use a few more hours of sleep. Besides he wasn't sure if he wanted to see Toki right now, that shit wasn't good. He told himself he wasn't going to do anything remotely sexual with any of his band mates, that was never a good idea. It ended with leaving bands, tense friendships, or getting the crap beaten out of him by guys who did not in any way want to admit they might not be completely heterosexual. He had some bad experiences with closet gay and closet bisexual guys back in his glam rock days. The types of large muscular trying to prove something guys who went after Club Kids type guys and anything remotely androgynous. He had fallen somewhere along those lines, enough for those types of guys. They were terrible at sex; too rough, too quick, and generally with their eyes closed and requests for him to go by a female name and keep himself quiet. Not like he had a problem with that last part, the sex was always so damned boring that he didn't have much to offer in the way of vocal talents. If it hadn't been for the copious amounts of heroin and cocaine then he never would have lowered himself to those standards. At least it hadn't been as bad as it had been when he'd been a teenager. It made his stomach roll when he thought about those months he'd spent going between the streets and friends couches when he'd run away from home. Finishing high school with no real place to go was hard, very hard, and yet he'd barely gotten through somehow. 

Now he was here; laid out on his large bed in his humungous fucking mansion, raging hang over, and not sure if he wanted to waste energy on getting up. 

It took another hour for him to force himself out of bed, half an hour kneeling in front of his toilet puking until there was nothing but stomach acid and maybe a hint of vodka from the early morning before he had passed out. He sat on the floor of the shower letting the water wash over him, he gave a very half ass attempt at cleaning himself up, and finally got out after fifteen minutes to get dressed and go in search of his band mates. Mostly Toki, he really needed to talk to him about what had happened. Plus against the not giving a shit about your friends rule he was kind of worried about him. That PTSD fueled fit he'd been having seemed bad, only made worse by the fact he had been covered in somebody's blood. It worried him his friend didn't remember what had happened or whose blood it was, he couldn't imagine how badly it scared Toki to come out of a black out and find himself in that state. Pickles probably shouldn't have made out with him after something like that. Toki got weird after those fits of his, he would act like they never happened, or just be sort of spacey. He'd been scared and lonely and confused, so yeah making out with him probably hadn't been a genius idea. It had been fucking incredible though, like damn. He forgot how much he enjoyed hooking up with guys. Pickles loved women, but when he could get the right kind of guys then it could be better. Maybe because some guys weren't putting on shows like the girls would. Whatever happened in that holding cell had been raw and genuine, nobody was trying to show the other that they had years worth of experience that most probably came from watching videos on pornhub more than was considered healthy. They had just been kind of out of it, full of lingering adrenaline, and again Toki was really good looking. Pickles didn't regret it, he just wasn't sure it should have happened.

After a couple hours of looking for his band mate and even trying his cell phone he realized that Toki might be feeling the same about what had happened.

“Shit” He mumbled to himself, he went to the kitchen as a last look resort.

Five guys who spent a lot of time drunk and stoned off of their asses tended to stay around food as often as they could.

In the kitchen he found three of his friends, none of which were the one he was looking for. He couldn't really hear what the three men huddled around the kitchen table were whispering about, generally when anybody around Mordhaus was whispering about something it was gossiping about somebody.

“Any of you guys see Toki around?”

The three of them jumped like he'd startled them, they turned their attention to him.

“Uh no, have you?” Nathan asked cautiously.

“No that's why I'm asking you guys.”

“Why the fuck would you want to know where that little lunatic is?” Murderface asked incredulously.

Pickles raised an eyebrow at that.

“I need to talk to him about....Something” He trailed off awkwardly, he scratched at the back of his neck.

“Again why would you wanna go around him, he's fucking weird.”

Murderface had never been intensely fond of their newer band mate. For the few short years that Toki had been in their band the bassist had done nothing but complain. It might have something to do with the fact that it was quickly established that Toki might possibly be much smarter than Murderface, he was pretty quick to point out when the bassist said something wrong or stupid. None of them saw much importance in intelligence, but the kid had wanted to finish high school; turned out he was very fucking intelligent. He was just in the wrong environment to be open about such a fact, except when he felt like mocking their bassist who too often liked to act like he was in charge of everything and everyone. Ever since the first time Toki pointed out Murderface was wrong about something the bassist complained that the newest member of their band was crazy and weird.

Not like they would disagree; he wasn't entirely normal or sane, but none of them were. They just repressed and ignored it.

“You fucking always say that.”

“Yeah, but he's actually right this time.” Nathan said, he internally cringed at having to side with Murderface on something for once.

Nobody liked siding with Murderface on literally anything.

“What the fuck did I miss?”

“Oh he doesn't know.”

The three of them glanced at one another like they weren't sure if they should share their secret or not.

“So you weren't there last night when Toki....”

“When Toki what?”

“He beat the shit out of some guy.” Nathan stated.

It was a simple statement, it wasn't even a big deal, but the way he said it you would have thought it was something foreboding and terrifying. Pickles was still completely lost on the topic and was getting annoyed by it all.

“So what, we fucking get in fights all the time.” He responded shrugging.

“No, no not just regular beat the fuck outta some dude. Like we're pretty fucking sure he killed the guy.”

“We don't know that yet.” Skwisgaar quickly defended.

Pickles had almost forgotten the guitarist was in the room.

“Well yeah, but you fucking saw that dude. He looked pretty fucking close to dead to me.”

“Wait, what the fuck are you guys talking about?”

He still wasn't a hundred percent on what they were talking about, but some things were clicking in his mind. Like why the hell Toki had been in jail, covered in blood, and in one of his messed up states. He just had a mildly difficult time picturing the guitarist killing somebody.

“There was some douche bag at the show last night, Toki fucking went off on him. Like fucking flipped his shit, he fucking had the guy on the ground and there was blood everywhere. It was fucking brutal.”

“Yeah then the little fucking asshole almost attacked me.” Murderface interjected, nobody paid attention.

“So some guy was fucking with him and he beat him up.”

“No he like...It wasn't fucking normal, alright? Like it was sort of like watching a dog killing something.”

The five of them had the habit of exaggerating. If something happened they would find a way to make it worse by adding details that had not taken place, it was a good way to start drama or blame somebody else for their fuck ups. Pickles was well aware they all did this, he was definitely guilty of it himself. Right now he had a hard time believing this was anything but exaggeration. He wasn't sure why he couldn't picture Toki doing that to somebody, maybe because he was still stuck on thinking about the fact they'd made out last night after he supposedly beat a guy to death.

“Right, okay so what happened after that?”

“Uh we ran away?”

“Whoa so wait, you guys just fucking left him there?”

He wasn't surprised, again.

The three of them went quiet for a moment like they were now figuring out that was maybe the wrong thing to do, but there had been a lot of people getting killed, and their guitarist had flipped his shit.

“What the fuck else were we supposed to do, kid was fucking killing some guy. Plus all the other shit that was going on.” Murderface defended.

“He got fucking arrested and he could of gotten fucking hurt.”

Nathan raised an eyebrow silently questioning why the hell he even cared if the kid got hurt or not, Pickles knew if the singer said something about his obvious caring he could just point out how Nathan was always babying the damn kid.

“He got arrested?” Skwisgaar asked, again he managed to take his attention away from his guitar long enough to take part in their discussion.

“Yeah, I fucking shared a cell with him until Ofdensen got us out.”

“Shit, did he try to kill you?” Murderface asked seeming possibly too interested in the prospect of violence.

“What, no of course not. If anything he seemed to be scared out of his fucking mind.”

“Why would he be scared, he's the one who killed a guy.” Nathan said.

“He doesn't fucking remember it.”

“I don't give a shit, he's still fucking crazy.” The bassist muttered, arms folded over his chest.

Pickles sighed heavily, yeah this was going nowhere.

“Right, so I'm going to go look for Toki now.”

He turned and left the room leaving his friends to continue with talking to one another about how crazy their new guitarist was. He had a feeling somewhere along the way it would end with one of them blaming Skwisgaar for replacing Magnus with somebody potentially just as crazy if not more. 

The drummer was relieved to find Toki in the living room, he wondered where he had been hiding away before now. The guitarist sat on the couch with a bottle of vodka held loosely in his right hand, the other hand he held his phone staring down at it. 

He just barely glanced away from his phone when Pickles entered the room, he didn't feel like it was a good idea to really go near or acknowledge his band mates today. He wondered how long until they would stop treating him like he was some horrible monster, unless his father was right then he was a horrible monster, and it was best that they treated him like one. He felt uneasy and tensed when Pickles sat down next to him. The older man noticed there was something off, there was always something off.

“I heard about what happened last night.”

“So why are you sitting with me then?” The younger man countered.

“I've been looking for you all fucking day, couldn't find you. Tried your phone.”

“I turned it off for awhile.” He answered quietly.

Pickles wasn't really sure what he should say or what he wanted to say. He wanted Toki to know he didn't hate him or blame him for what he'd done to that guy, he knew it couldn't have really been on purpose. Something had happened, he had blacked out, and from the look of things he seemed genuinely scared of what he had done the night before. The drummer placed a hand on his arm, his fingers brushed over his skin and Toki looked up at him confused by the light sign of affection.

“Charles called me, he told me that guy I attacked died this morning. I killed somebody. It finally happened.” 

He sounded so sad and broken, Pickles kept his hand on his arm.

“Do you remember any of it?”

Toki shook his head, “No”

“I don't remember anything about it.....I just barely remember the cops arresting me, and nothing after that except for coming to in the cell.”

He looked like he had spent the night crying and that he might start again soon. Pickles doubted he'd slept much if at all, it made him feel like he should have offered to spend the night with him, just to make sure he'd been fine. 

“I didn't mean to do it, I swear.” Toki said voice trembling a bit, he looked up at the drummer.

His eyes were pleading for somebody to believe that he wasn't crazy when even he wasn't sure of it.

“I know, I know you didn't pal. It's okay.” 

Pickles wrapped an arm around his friend's shoulders holding him against his side.

“The others won't even be in the same room with me now, Skwisgaar doesn't even want to be around me. They all know I'm fucking crazy.”

“Dude they'll come around, fucking week or two they'll forget all about it.”

It was true, their attention spans didn't allow them to stay on something for longer than that. He couldn't imagine them spending that long being nervous and on edge around the youngest member of their group. Nathan would be the first one to get over it and the others would follow suit. For right now Pickles was the only one of them who didn't care at all, maybe it was because he hadn't seen what had taken place. He saw the after effects; he saw their frightened twenty something year old guitarist curled up and totally out of it. As far as the others were concerned he was a dangerous psycho like their previous guitarist. From what Pickles could tell he was a frightened kid with a really bad past who had an episode at the wrong place, wrong time. 

“Why are you being so nice to me, I did something bad.”

“I know you didn't fucking mean to, you don't even really remember what you did to that guy. You feel shitty enough about it.”

He liked it when Toki leaned his head against his shoulder, he was sort of getting into the whole consoling thing.

“Alright come on, it's not good for you to fucking stress over this shit. I say we take the rest of this bottle of vodka, go off somewhere and try to relax.” The drummer suggested, he kissed the top of the younger man's head.

Toki pulled back and smiled shyly up at him. Pickles preferred it when he was smiling, he didn't like seeing him so stressed and pressured.

“I would like that, I really just want to forget about things for awhile. Can we go to your room?”

“Anywhere you want.” Pickles responded

The younger man kissed him gently before getting up off of the couch, he waited for Pickles to get up and follow him out of the living room and up to his room. He forgot up until that point that he had been wanting to talk to Toki about what had happened between the two of them, but his friend kissing him of his own accord had to be a good sign that he wasn't regretting what had taken place, he didn't seem like that type of guy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Club Kids was an 80s type of club scene in the mid to late 1980s, mostly in New York. Based off of drugs, alcohol, gender bending, and open sexuality.


	3. Chapter 3

“That wasn't the first time that something like this happened.” Toki confessed after several shots of vodka later.

The two musicians sat on Pickles bed facing each other, the bottle sat between them. The more alcohol Toki consumed then the more willing he was to delve into things that he knew before now nobody gave a fuck about or just really didn't need to hear about.

“How many other times?”

The younger man held up two fingers.

“How old were you?” Pickles asked casually, he wasn't judging.

He'd been a temperamental punk in his teen years, fights in and outside of home had become a hobby for him for the longest time.

“First time I was thirteen, it was after I left home. I was still in Norway; this asshole at the school I was going to started bullying me. It wasn't really secret about my family and my father's church, the moment he touched me I just blacked out. I came to with a teacher holding me up, I was thrashing like crazy, and that kid was laid out on the ground....His face was bloodied, nose was broken, left eye was swollen shut. I had to beg to not be kicked out and sent back to my mother and father.”

He took another drink to push the memory back down, bad memory. Bad times. 

“Brutal, why did you run away from home?”

Toki averted his eyes, he had one friend willing to talk to him. He didn't want to lose that by talking about his overly religious family.

“They weren't nice to me.”

Pickles smirked, “Neither were my folks. My old man used to hit me, mom would yell at me afterward and say it happened cause I was such a useless little fuck up.”

He couldn't help but smile when Toki's eyes widened at hearing that, he wasn't sure why he seemed so shocked or saddened by that. Pickles knew the way his parents had treated him had been wrong, but after so many years, even now it just seemed normal. He could almost believe that it was his fault his father had been a violent drunk and his fault that his mother even now told him he was worthless. That reminded him, he needed to call them sometime to see how things were doing.

“That's horrible Pickle”

“I guess, I never made shit easy. I drank a lot, got into fights at school....I ended up running away when I was about fifteen.”

Toki smiled slightly, “That's when I left Norway”

“Shit you spent that long on the streets?”

The other man shrugged.

“I just wanted somewhere my father couldn't find me, he could find me in Norway...There were always followers of his coming into the neighboring towns. Really hard to hide away in a place like that.”

There was something haunting and distant about Toki when he talked about his family. He got that look he had back in jail when he hadn't spoken and when he'd flinched at being touched. Pickles took a long drink from the bottle as he wondered if he should bring that up.

“Why did you flinch when I was touching you back in the cell?” He asked curiously.

Toki blinked at him, confused; he barely remembered what had happened. He vaguely did remember somebody touching him, but in some corner of his mind he had mistaken the touch for his father. He reacted badly to being hit, in the wrong state he didn't react well to positive touch either. 

“I don't remember too well, I don't think I knew it was you.”

It was the best answer that he could give.

Pickles sat the bottle back down on the bed, he still wanted to talk about everything that had happened that night. He wasn't sure if it was important or not, Toki didn't seem too bothered by it.

“I just figured it freaked you out having me touching you and whatever.”

“No I liked that, when I found out it was you.” He answered voice soft, light blue eyes staring up at the drummer.

Pickles had to admit his fingers were itching to touch the younger man, they had more than enough privacy now. He had no reason to want to kiss him, there were no excuses or shallow ways that he could explain it. The way that Toki was watching him was like he was just waiting for the older man to make a move.

“Fuck it” He muttered under his breath.

He took the younger man's face in his hands pulling him in and kissing him hard. Toki's fingers curled in the front of his shirt pulling the older man's body closer to him. He lay back on the bed pulling Pickles down on top of him. The guitarist's hands moved up under the back of the older man's shirt, short nails dragged down his back making him groan. Pickles bit at the younger man's lower lip tugging, Toki ground his hips up against him. The red haired man combed his fingers back through thick brown hair tangling his fingers in it and pulling earning a soft moan from his friend. The guitarist sat up with Pickles on his lap, his arms wrapped around his neck. Toki placed his hands on the older man's hips keeping his body pressed close against his own as they continued to kiss. He moved to the other man's neck kissing from his jaw down to his shoulder, he bit down hard enough to leave a mark and earn a groan. His hands slipped up under Pickles shirt, he continued to kiss and bite at his neck leaving as many marks as he could. The older man never scolded him for biting so hard, he didn't seem to mind. Pickles broke away from the kiss long enough to remove his shirt dropping it to the side, the guitarist pushed him back down onto the bed. Toki kissed him hard, his tongue found its way into Pickles mouth the tip playing over his piercing. The drummer placed his left leg over the younger man's back pulling him down against him, he ground his hips up against him allowing him to feel how hard he was getting. 

Pickles knew what he had spent years saying about his no screwing around with band mates rule, but this was different. The rule and the reasons behind it went out the window the second that Toki unfastened his jeans and took hold of his cock. He bucked shamelessly up into the younger man's hand. He pulled hard at long hair when his friend gave a squeeze at the base of his cock before stroking up. The rule didn't matter, neither did the no caring rule; not that he cared per say. This was sex, just because Toki was giving him a hand job right now didn't mean that he cared about him. Just because his breathing might have halted for a second or two when the younger man looked into his eyes didn't mean a fucking thing. When they kissed again it was heated, passionate, he couldn't help but moan into it; God this was hot. 

Calloused fingers worked his hard cock, a thumb circled the head of his cock. Pickles bit Toki's lip, the younger man pulled back smirking down at him. He moved to the older man's neck biting hard, the drummer moaned and bucked his hips. Toki gave another firm squeeze to his cock making him still, he moved his hand down to his balls lightly running his fingers over the sensitive flesh. His sharp teeth nipped at the skin over his collar bones and over his chest, he took the older man's right nipple into his mouth sucking, licking. He started stroking him again paying attention to the curses and high feminine moans that fell from his friend's mouth. He gave another stroke before pulling his hand away completely and sitting back on his knees. Pickles propped himself up on his elbows watching the taller man remove his shirt tossing it to the side. 

Yeah, no he had literally no regrets or shame that he was about to have mind blowing sex with his band mate. 

Pickles placed his hands on the younger man's sides, he pulled himself up into a sort of sitting position. He kissed along the dark haired man's firm body, his tongue trailing over his abs down to the hem of his jeans. Fingers combed through his dreads, he glanced up at the younger man who kept his eyes on him. 

“You're really fucking ripped dude, keep forgetting that.” 

“I work hard” 

He had to be the only one of them who actually worked out without being forced to. Pickles wasn't jealous or complaining, he was just trying to remember how long since it's been since he'd hooked up with a really good looking guy. This had to be the first time in a lot of years. He continued to trail his tongue over his friend's body, piercing rolling over heated skin, he moved lower placing his mouth over the prominent bulge in his jeans. Toki's breathing hitched and he tightened his grip on the hair at the back of the older man's head. Pickles tongue went over the denim pressing hard, he only stopped when Toki pulled hard on his hair forcing his head back. He stared up at him waiting, he lowered his eyes when he heard the sound of a zipper. Toki pulled his cock free from his jeans, hand wrapped around the base. Pickles moved his hands from the guitarist's sides down to his hips, he pulled him closer until the head of his cock was pressing against his lips. He took the head into his mouth sucking, his tongue circled around then ran over the tip earning a twitch from his friend. He took more of his length into his mouth sucking harder, his piercing rolled along the underside of his cock making his partner moan. Toki pushed at the back of his head urging him to go further. Pickles pulled back until only the tip remained in his mouth, he gave one more lick before taking most of his cock into his mouth. He relaxed his throat making it easier on himself when the younger man started moving his hips. He didn't mind this, he was a fucking pro at this sort of thing. Just this was the first time in awhile he really wanted a guy to fuck his mouth.

Pickles hummed around Toki's cock, the younger man moaned loudly. He continued to shallowly move his hips fucking his friend's mouth, he did his best not to hurt him or choke him. When he felt himself getting too close to cumming he pulled all of the way out leaving Pickles breathing heavily. Toki sat back down onto the bed, he placed a hand on Pickles cheek and smiled at him. He leaned in kissing him gently, he ran his tongue over his bottom lip.

“You did really good” he whispered impressed.

The older man found himself smirking and laughing a bit at the compliment.

“Lots of practice, now come on I want you to fuck me until I can't even remember my damn name.”

When they kissed it was hard and full of need, neither of them were too sure what they needed. Right now just each other and to forget a past full of very bad things. Pickles didn't even stop and question when his fingers touched what felt like scars all over Toki's back. He knew about the scars, but not the cause; they were working to forget. He noticed for a second there he tensed when Pickles touched the marks on his back that peeked out around his sides and over his ribs, but he leaned into his touch quickly enough. In exchange Toki didn't ask questions when he saw the scars on Pickles inner thighs; he just pressed his lips against them gently kissing them as his fingers worked inside of him stretching him open. The drummer moaned and angled his hips so it was easier for his friend to finger him. He didn't want to think too much about the lips pressed against old marks on his skin, but the caring gesture left him moaning and begging to be used. Toki kissed over his stomach and chest; he was careful when he pushed his cock inside of him. He used enough lube to ensure it wouldn't hurt too much, he moved like it was the last thing he wanted was to hurt his friend. Pickles wrapped his legs around his back pulling him in to the hilt. The younger man stilled, forehead pressed against his chest and hot heavy breath against his skin. 

“I meant it when I said to fuck me hard.”

Toki looked back up at him like he wanted to ask, he forgot what he wanted to ask when Pickles kissed him. With those hands on his skin, fingers tangled in his hair and the warmth around his cock he didn't feel like questioning much at all. He pulled out then pushed back in as hard as he was willing to give, by the loud moan he earned from the quick rough movement of his hips he knew he was giving him just what he'd asked for. 

“God damn it....Just like that, keep going like that. Fuck Toki...Fuck I really need this”

This was a million times better than he had fantasized about when they had gotten back home. He met the younger musician thrust for thrust, they kissed roughly only breaking away to moan and cry out the others name. 

Pickles wrapped his fingers around his own throbbing cock stroking himself, he was so hard it was starting to hurt. He smeared precum over the head of his cock and bucked up into his own hand, Toki took hold of his wrist pulling his hand away. The drummer made a frustrated sound that almost sounded like a whimper. Toki pressed his lips against the front of his throat.

“Hold out and I'll do something really sweet for you in a minute.” He whispered against his skin, his fingers rubbed against his hip.

The drummer couldn't argue that, something about a sweet lust heavy voice made him just want to listen. That and the rough way the younger man was currently pounding into him, God this was just what he needed, and women were not the ones who would give this to him. He was sure he could find a guy, any guy in the world to do this with. Just fate made it turn out it was one of his band mates currently fucking him and making him moan like a whore. He would deal with it later, right now he was lost in the moment. He was lost to teeth biting into his shoulder, nails digging into his skin and the younger man's cock pushing and brushing against his prostate with every single thrust making it so much harder to keep from cumming. He dug his nails into his friend's back, closed his eyes tightly and begged for him. He wasn't even sure what he was begging for anymore, he just needed to beg.

The guitarist came inside of him, he moaned something that was completely lost on the drummer. He really needed to learn Norwegian sometime. He liked the feeling of being filled, the feeling of his friend's cum running down over his skin and onto the sheets. Toki kissed him gently, again he whispered something in a language he knew damned well the older man couldn't understand. He brushed his knuckles against his cheek and somewhere in the depths of pupil blown lust filled eyes he saw something tender and caring, he didn't know how he felt about it. It made him kiss him again, want him again. It was satisfying to feel that mouth wrapped around his throbbing cock, to feel that tongue working over his shaft. Something about bright eyes staring up at him, sweaty brown hair fell down over his face, and Pickles reached down to push Toki's hair back away from his face. No, fuck his friend was beautiful. 

The younger man's tongue teased the tip of his cock, his fingers caressed over his balls, and he sucked hard urging him to cum. It didn't take much coaxing to get the drummer to cum inside of his mouth. Pickle called out his friend's name when he came, his fingers continued to pet through his hair as he rode out his orgasm. Toki's tongue was moving over his cock cleaning it. He pulled away wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He stayed kneeling like he wasn't entirely sure if it was okay for him to stay or if he should go ahead and get the hell out. Pickles gestured for him to come lay down with him, the guitarist happily obliged. He curled up against the drummer's side burying his face against his side, Pickles wrapped an arm around his shoulders.

Having sex with band mates was not a good thing to do. He wasn't sure if they should have done this or not, but he felt damned good. Toki seemed happy, content; he wondered if this would keep happening or this would be the last they spoke of it.


	4. Chapter 4

It had entered Pickles mind that maybe it was a bad idea to start having sex with one of his band mates. They didn't have a rule about this sort of thing, but he had a personal rule against it. Besides it was only three years ago that they even got this new guitarist, like God he didn't need to do something really stupid like that. He doubted that Toki would leave the band if they stopped having sex with each other, why would he?

It was just sex, that's it. Pickles kept telling himself that. Lying was good, lying to yourself was a very good thing to do, because the truth was ugly. In this case the truth was a really pretty Norwegian who would be more than willing to be by his side for as long as he wanted him there. That wasn't good, because that wasn't how it was supposed to go. They both got lonely though, that was where the problem started really. 

The drummer snorted another line of coke off of the hand mirror he had sitting on his bed. It was seriously the only reason he even had a hand mirror, looking at his reflection wasn't a thing he enjoyed too much. Drugs weren't a good idea when he was trying to contemplate what to do with his...Relationship?

Was this a relationship?

Ever since the jail incident and the day after it they had spent two weeks going to one another for nearly anything. Bad dream, depression, tantrum, or remembering bad things from their pasts they had worked too hard to bury. For anything they went to one another, to talk, but mostly to get high and have sex. Pickles didn't think that counted as a solid relationship, but this was the first time for years he'd had sex with the same person more than once. He was unsure about the way that it made him feel, he felt way too sensitive to his friend's feelings and his well being.

He had thought that getting stoned would help with his feelings, but it wasn't doing shit for him right now. If anything between the cocaine and the pills he had taken earlier that night he was feeling worse than he had been. 

He wondered what Toki was up to.

Probably not a good idea to call him or message him, he didn't need another reason to be thinking about all of this stuff. Yet he was really lonely, he had too much going through his mind at the moment, and he was pretty sure that his friend still had some weed stashed away in his room. Shit. That was a really good reason to bother him. After dragging himself from his bed, finding his pants on the floor and searching through his pockets for his phone he moved himself back over to his bed. Pickles flopped down on the bed and called the younger musician.

“Hello?”

“Hey man, you still got that weed?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Cause I'm getting bored of what I got in my room.”

Plus he did really just want to see him, hang out with him. 

“So you want me to give you all my weed? No fucking way, don't you have any, you always have weed.”

Generally that would be true, Pickles was the one member of their band who constantly had weed on hand. He was practically the supplier of weed in most situations, but today wasn't one of those times. He had been clean out for a couple of weeks now, he only had pills and cocaine. He found he liked those things way better in his glam rock days than he did now, weed sounded like a better idea. Company sounded like a really good idea or a bad idea.

“No, no we can fucking share. Come on, please?”

He could hear Toki laughing on the other end of the phone, he smirked.

“Alright, I'll be in your room in a couple minutes.”

“Thanks dude, I fucking owe you.”

Good so he could get stoned, more stoned than he already was, and also be around his friend. Who he had become alarmingly closer to in the past couple of weeks, he needed to stop that. Nathan wasn't okay with them all getting attached to each other, it was never a good idea, and if he knew Pickles and Toki were hooking up he'd probably make a solid rule against that. Not because it was gay, well maybe a little because of that, but mostly because it was a shit idea. In recorded music history there was never a situation where band mates could have sex with each other or date and it would be alright in the end. Pickles couldn't see the two of them dating, thank God. That would be bad, Pickles fucking sucked at dating. He had never dated a guy before, he had plenty of girlfriends in his past, but it never lasted. Besides he knew Toki didn't really go for dating all that often either; he had dated that blond haired female model who everybody pointed out looked way too similar to Skwisgaar, but that ended quick. So they were just two guys casually hooking up and going to each other for some weird form of emotional support, that was it. No dating, they could date, or hook up with whoever they wanted to. It was all cool.

Pickles was in the middle of snorting another line when Toki came into his room, zip lock bag full of joints in hand. He carefully got onto the bed sitting across from the older musician, Pickles lifted his head and smiled at him. 

“I don't get how you do that stuff” He said looking down at the cocaine covered mirror.

“You do know not everybody who does coke turns into a crazy clown junkie, right?”

“I like weed better, it's more natural.”

The drummer rolled his eyes at the comment.

“Hate to tell ya pal, but most this shit starts out as plants. Beside you do X an LSD like a little fucking raver.”

Pickles grabbed the bag of weed away from Toki and handed him the hand mirror.

“Just one line, then we can go all fucking Cheech and Chong for the rest of the night.”

Toki smiled and shook his head, “Fine, one”

The drummer watched amused as the guitarist snorted a line, he pulled back rubbing at his nose.

“See not so bad” 

Pickles kissed the top of his head, he kissed his lips when the younger man finally lifted his head to look at him.

“Right it just burns, I think I'll stick to other things.”

“Sure thing, now come on I haven't had a smoke for way too long.”

He took a joint for himself and passed another to his friend then proceeded to light them both up. The two of them spent about half an hour in silence, smoking weed, and listening to the nearly muted metal music playing on the stereo system. Pickles found himself zoning out a lot, staring at his friend, and every now and again he would kiss his neck. He was more than happy when Toki removed his shirt, though that made it harder for him to not stare at his friend. The younger musician noticed, he crawled over to where the older man was laying and leaned over him. He kissed him gently smiling against his lips, Pickles combed his fingers back through his hair pushing it back behind his ear. They continued kissing, Toki gave a playful nip at his lip before moving away and laying down on his stomach. The drummer rolled over onto his side, he trailed his fingers along the scars on Toki's back. 

“So how did these happen?”

“I already told you.” 

Pickles kissed between his shoulder blades, his fingers brushed down over his sides.

“You told the others that you got attacked by a wolf.”

“I could have been.”

The drummer kissed another scar, the younger man felt relaxed.

“If I tell you how this happened then you can tell me about the scars on your thighs.”

“I was a really stressed out kid, drinking doesn't exactly make everything better. So I used to cut, I stopped around the time I joined Dethklok.”

Pickles lay back down on his back, Toki was watching him. 

“I'm glad you stopped”

“I stopped seeing the point in it, what about you?”

The younger man shifted uncomfortably, he didn't like having to tell about what sort of childhood he'd had. He feared what people would think of him.

“When I would mess up really badly...My dad would, he would whip me.”

“Holy shit”

Toki wasn't looking at him now, he was looking down at the sheets tugging at them with his fingers. Pickles reached out combing his fingers back through his hair then trailing them over a scarred up back. 

“Your dad sounds like he was a real asshole.”

“It was my fault.”

“Don't say that, you were a kid, and that is a hell of a way to fucking punishing a kid for messing up.”

He felt bad for the guy, he didn't have anything really brilliant to say. He knew even after all of that time it still bothered him, it traumatized him. 

“I know that, part of me does. Other parts of me think I did things wrong and what he did to me was right, it's dumb.”

“No it's not”

Pickles kissed him slowly, lovingly; none of this was helping his situation. He wanted to make him feel better; there weren't too many ways he knew how to do that. He caressed his back, brushed his fingers through his hair, and kissed him in a way he hoped conveyed how badly he felt for what he'd gone through. When their eyes met he saw what he hated seeing anytime they looked at one another. It left him more than willing and compliant when Toki pushed him back onto his back and began kissing down his body. Something about blue eyes, he didn't know what it was; it was like there was something transparent to them. He liked having them looking up at him and feeling a warm mouth on his skin, his grip on the younger man's hair tightened when he felt his lips wrap around his cock. Pickles hated to do it, but he leaned his head back and closed his eyes. He moaned and softly encouraged his friend to keep going, Toki's tongue ran over the tip of his cock. Pickles jerked his hips when his tongue continued to go over the head of his dick. The younger musician held his hips down as he continued to suck him, he leisurely twirled his tongue around the other man's length. He moved at a slow pace teasing him, normally he'd want something faster, but he was good with this. Pickles opened his eyes again looking down at his friend, looking down into beautiful blue eyes staring up at him. He bit at his bottom lip tugging it with his teeth; Toki pulled up slowly, tongue circling around his cock on his way up. He stroked his cock with his right hand as he sucked on the head of his cock. Pickles moved his hand from his hair to his shoulder gripping tightly as he came inside his mouth, the younger man swallowed only pulling away when the older musician's cock began to soften. 

Toki lay down by the red haired man's side, he placed a hand on his chest and buried his face against his side. Pickles kissed the top of his head, he couldn't help, but continue to run his fingers over the scars on his back and the ones that peeked over the top of his shoulder. Toki pulled his head back and looked up at him, the drummer leaned down kissing him about as gently as he had been in the first place. He wasn't sure if it was the weed making them go slow and gentle or if it was something else they found it better to ignore. Pickles turned onto his side facing him making it much easier to kiss him and to touch him. He moved a hand down the front of his body to the bulge in the front of his jeans. He was impressed with himself and his ability to unfasten his jeans one handed, Toki must have been impressed with him as well, because he smiled against his mouth. He whispered something Pickles couldn't understand before kissing him again, he placed a hand on the back of his neck holding him close as they kissed. He bucked into the older man's hand when he began stroking his cock, calloused fingers rubbing over hot flesh. He bit Pickles lip groaning when the red haired man moved his hand faster then slow again. He buried his face against his chest, hand moving from his neck to his side, and his fingers curling against his skin as he fucked his fist. Pickles was content to listen to the soft whimpers and moans he was making, he liked the feeling of warm breath against his chest, and the sound of cursing in Norwegian. For a moment he thought back to how much they used to hate how their new guitarist spoke mostly in his native tongue until he got a better grasp on English, soon he was speaking English better than Skwisgaar. Anymore the drummer liked hearing him speak in his native language, it was pretty, it made his voice deeper. Though the way he moaned and begged was far from masculine sounding, the drummer loved it. He loved the lips pressing against his chest, the way his name sounded when his friend moaned it, and he loved the way his nails were biting into his skin. The younger man came into his hand and on his stomach, he came calling his name and something more. He continued to kiss his skin only stopping when Pickles pulled away. The drummer grabbed his friend's shirt from the bed using it to wipe the cum from his hand and stomach.

“That's my shirt” The younger man complained.

“Yeah and your cum on my fucking hand.”

“Jerk” Toki muttered

“Like you don't love walking around shirtless and pissing Nathan off.”

The brown haired man smiled. Pickles lay back down with him, he kissed him passionately. It wasn't until they broke apart and he looked down into his eyes did he realize just how much he did love about his friend.

Pickles sat up moving away from his friend, Toki sat up as well looking at him curiously.

“What's wrong?”

“I was just thinking, do you....Do you think this is a good idea?”

“What is?”

“Us doing this, like I don't know if band mates should hook up y'know?”

He knew he was choosing the dumbest moment to possibly break this off, but it was getting out of hand. 

“I don't know, I like this though.”

“Yeah I know and I do too, just....I don't know if we should.” He responded lamely.

Toki was looking at him waiting for a reason that didn't come out as an awkward excuse. Pickles had a difficult time looking at him, he felt like an asshole for this. He shouldn't have hooked up with him in the first place, it was a bad idea. He'd told himself years ago that he wouldn't have sex with anymore band mates and for awhile in this band that had been really easy. Just recently it wasn't so easy and feelings were starting to accompany what they were doing. At least for the drummer, for all he knew the guitarist could just take it as something casual. He wasn't sure if that made him feel better or worse though.

“Can you tell me what this is really about?”

“It's just I don't know if we should do this, nothing good really comes out of this sort of thing.”

The younger man remained silent for a moment, he wasn't sure if he should demand a real reason, or just be okay with what Pickles was telling him. Nobody in their group seemed to be all that talented with telling the truth or expressing themselves, so he wasn't sure if he should just settle for this or get angry.

“Okay, that's...Sure, we're still friends right?”

“Course we are, yeah....Just not like this anymore.”

Toki nodded in agreement, he liked having this comfort. There was something consoling in it, in the way his friend touched him, and kissed him. It made him feel less like Hell, losing whatever they had going with each other made him feel like he would be left in the dark again. He wasn't sure if he could handle that, but he would have to.

“Okay, I think I'm going to go find...I'm just going to go hang out with Skwisgaar, I'll see you later I guess.” He said awkwardly, he got up off of the bed and left not giving a look back at the red head.

Pickles flopped back down on his bed when the door closed, he was alone again. Not really what he wanted. At least he still had his cocaine and groupies.


	5. Chapter 5

Things sort of got bad after Pickles called off whatever relationship he had built up with Toki. He felt bad about it, felt bad that he stopped returning as many of the younger musician's text messages, and that he spent less time with him in general. He found himself spending more and more time with the rest of his group, the guys he'd known for many years, years before they met their new rhythm guitarist. He felt uncomfortable and sad when he saw the kid stumbling around drunk, heard him in his room crying at night, and seeing him so out of his fucking mind. It would end badly, he knew it would, but he liked to pretend like the others that he didn't care. The four of them cared, they knew that they did, but they were too stubborn to admit it. They just watched on as Toki destroyed himself, because confronting him and helping him would have been too much work. Nobody wanted to deal with the pain that came with friends with bad addictions, depression, and other mental issues. So they let it go until the night everything seemed to go to absolute Hell. 

When those people started attacking Mordhaus everybody lost track of one another, never a good thing. Pickles had been grateful he had at least gotten to be around Skwisgaar, at least he could know one of his friends was okay. By the time that everything was over the five of them seemed fine enough, shaken up, hung over, but otherwise fine. The only problem was their band lawyer was laid out on the ground bloodied and motionless. Nathan swore that he still had a pulse, his chest was rising and falling even if it was just barely. When the paramedics got to him though they came to tell the band that he had died, had been dead. Pickles and Nathan swore he had been breathing when they checked on him, but they were still in shocked. A good portion of their home had been burned, they had nearly died again, and their manager was dead. Even at the funeral it didn't feel all too real, it felt like a really shit dream, a shared dream they really just wanted the Hell out of. Pickles wasn't sure why it bothered him so much.

Even days later he sat on his bed crying, because he didn't know what else to do. The stupid bourbon wasn't doing anything, it was just making his stomach hurt, and making his head feel messed up. He continued drinking, because that's what he did. He rather drink and do drugs than relapse back into cutting himself when he couldn't handle something, this was better for him. Right?

He hated all of this, he hated crying. It wasn't good to cry, his mother used to yell at him when he would cry. She would tell him to man up, he had no reason to be crying, and when it wasn't her it was his brother taunting him for being so weak and girly. He hated it, hated them, and hated himself. He hated that he let himself get close with their lawyer, he was just some suit; why the hell did he think of him as a close friend? They mostly had treated the guy like shit, there were times they could go out with him and treat him like anybody else they were friends with, but other than that they made his life Hell. In retrospect he felt bad about that, they could have made things easier on the guy. He was only doing his job, he nearly died once saving Toki and Skwisgaar, and then finally died this time protecting them. It was weird, Pickles didn't like death. He didn't like back in the old days with other bands when he would go into a hotel room to find somebody he was friends with or a girl he was casually dating face down on the floor dead. He didn't like getting news that a cousin committed suicide. He didn't like death, he handled it badly, because somehow he felt like he could have done something. 

He took another drink from the bottle nearly finishing it off. He wasn't sure what he could do once this was empty.

Pickles jumped when his bedroom door opened and Toki came into the room. The guitarist seemed quiet and reserved like he wasn't all too sure why he even came into the room. By the look of his eyes and his flushed cheeks it seemed like he had been crying as well. He kept his eyes averted and his hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans, because he wasn't entirely sure what to do or to say. Pickles rubbed at his own eyes doing his best to make the stupid tears to stop falling, he did not need this.

“What are you doing in here?” He asked trying to make his voice less shaky, less broken up.

He sounded like a teenage boy going through puberty, not a great sound. 

They hadn't really spoken lately, not since the fire, the attack, or the funeral. Toki would look at him, stare at him like he wanted to say something to him or that he was waiting. Pickles wasn't sure what he was waiting for, because he sure as hell had nothing to give to him. It took him off guard when the younger man sat down beside him on the bed and wrapped his arms around his waist. Toki buried his face in the crook of his neck and sighed heavily.

“I've never seen you cry before.” He commented, he pressed his lips against the older man's neck before pulling back so he could look at him better.

Pickles felt ashamed of himself, he kept himself from meeting his friend's eyes. 

“I don't cry, I don't fucking know why I'm even doing it right now.”

“It's okay to cry, you aren't the only one.”

The drummer was lost at the thought that the rest of his friends could be crying over this. It just wasn't their thing, maybe Skwisgaar and Toki's thing, but not their thing. He still didn't like that he was doing it though or that somebody was seeing this display of weakness. It only made him try harder to stop.

“I don't cry, it's stupid, and weak....Fuck, he was just some stupid fucking suit. I don't know why I'm upset over it.”

“He was our friend.”

That was part of the problem, people they became friends with tended to die. Years ago they used to lightly joke that their band was cursed, but over time it became less of a joke and more of a horrible truth.

“Right and just like most of our friends he fucking croaked, because that's how it goes. God I should be used to this by now, but it really fucking sucks. I'm sick of losing people.”

“How do you think I feel, I've lost a ton of people I cared about just this year alone.”

Pickles rubbed at his eyes again, he turned his head to look up at his friend. Toki wasn't crying, but something inside of him was broken. He hadn't exactly thought too hard about the fact that he was right, he had lost several people in just one year. Pickles wasn't sure if his father should be counted as somebody he cared about, but it meant something to the guitarist. 

“Sorry”

“It's okay....We all still have each other.” He offered.

Pickles smirked and shook his head, “That's gay”

“It's better than nothing, I would be so screwed if it wasn't for you guys.”

The drummer wasn't too fond thinking about what could have happened to Toki if they hadn't let him into their band. There was no way he could have survived another week or a month on the streets.

“We don't do you much good lately.....I'm sorry I've been ignoring you by the way.”

He wished that he hadn't just ignored him like that, it made him feel like more of a selfish prick than usual.

“I was worried I did something to piss you off.”

“No, God no; I've just been doing other stuff.”

“Like trying to give yourself a blow job?” 

“Shut up, at least I managed to actually do it.” 

Pickles was still as proud of himself for that as a person possibly could be.

“That is impressive, you gotta show me that trick sometime.” Toki commented, he placed a hand on the older man's leg.

“You know we aren't supposed to be doing that anymore.”

“Did I do something wrong?” He asked pulling his hand away.

The drummer wanted him to put his hand on his leg again, he missed having Toki touching him. 

“No, I told you it's nothing you did. Just we can't be that way with each other anymore, it's not good.”

“Why?”

“I suck at relationships, I fucking suck with them, and I can't have a relationship with you.”

It would end badly; he'd cheat on him or do something to annoy him to the point he would start hating him.

“We don't have to have a relationship then, we can just....We can see other people, but still be with each other. We wouldn't even have to tell anybody about it if you're worried about that, I don't mind. I'm cool with it.”

“I know you're trying to help, but it's making me feel like an asshole. You deserve a real relationship, not something weird and complicated.”

Toki placed a hand on his cheek his fingers brushing the tears from his skin. Pickles looked into his eyes, pretty nice guys deserved so much better than washed up punk guys. Just he was having a difficult time looking away from his eyes or telling him how bad this would be in the end, it felt mind blowing when Toki kissed him. They hadn't kissed for weeks now, shit he really missed this. He placed a hand on the side of the younger man's neck as they continued to kiss, it was passionate and welcoming. He tasted sweet and he felt warm, this was familiar, and in the end he really needed something familiar. He needed somebody who knew about his scars and his problems and wasn't going to mock him or hate him for them. Toki placed a hand on his inner thigh, the drummer parted his legs on instinct and moaned softly when he felt fingers trail over jean clad skin, the guitarist knew just where his scars lay beneath his clothing. When the kiss ended they were left with heavy breaths and staring into each others eyes, Pickles smirked and kissed him quickly.

“I love you Pickle” 

Those were the words he had hoped he never would have to hear, because he didn't deserve them. He knew it, he knew each time that Toki looked at him that the younger man felt something for him, but hearing it out loud hurt. 

“God you're fucking killing me kid, ya know that? I don't have anything good to offer you.”

“I don't care, I just want to be with you. We don't have to stress over this and right now I'm really tired of being alone so much.”

“Me too”

“So can we at least try?”

“Sure, but I warned you.”

Toki smiled, he kissed him before pulling away and laying down on the bed.

“I'll take my chances.”

The drummer laid down by his friend's side, he ran his fingers through thick brown hair and smiled at the feeling of lips pressing against the front of his throat. He wanted to tell him he loved him too, because he did despite how much that scared him, but when things ended his own feelings would only make it hurt all that much more. He couldn't tell him, but he could show him in the way he touched his scars and in the loving way that he kissed him, and in the way he held him like he was protecting him from all of that bad shit out in the world. He could at least let him know in that way that he loved him too.


End file.
